However, this interpretation of the Aristotelian notion of the inherence of an accident in its subject seems to be in direct conflict with the theological doctrine of the miracle of the Eucharist, which would require at least the logical possibility of the existence of the accidents of transubstantiated bread and wine without inhering in any substance. For if for an accident to exist is for its subject to be informed by it, then it seems to involve a direct contradiction to claim that an accident exists and yet it does not inform any subject.
The theological requirement of the separability of accidents in continued existence from their subject, therefore, introduced a number of complications into the interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of accidental being. The fundamental question is whether the Aristotelian doctrine is absolutely incompatible with the theological doctrine of the Eucharist, or whether there is some authentic interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine that would allow the separate existence of accidents to be at least supernaturally possible, i. e., free from contradiction.
A striking exposition of the ‘‘incompatibilist position’’ is provided in the fourteenth century by John Buridan, who argues that since Aristotle’s position is incompatible with Christian faith, Christians actually have to have a radically different concept of accidental being from that of Aristotle (Bakker 2001:247-257). On Buridan’s view, the Aristotelian position necessarily implies that an accident is inseparable in continued existence from its subject precisely because on that position for an accident to be is for it to be in a subject, whence the very concept of an accident must be connotative, necessarily implying its being an accident of some substance. Therefore, Buridan finds it inevitable that Christians, who uphold the supernatural separability of accidents, must part company with Aristotle on the issue of accidental being, as well as the Aristotelian doctrine of the analogy of being. For Christians, the accidents persisting in the Eucharist without a subject ought to be conceived by means of absolute concepts without any connotation of their subject, and so as beings in exactly the same sense as their underlying subject.
Thus, Buridan’s analysis closely ties together the Aristotelian doctrine of the analogy of being with that of the absolute inseparability of accidents in continued existence, and, consequently, he also holds that the theological doctrine of the supernatural separability of accidents directly leads to the conception of the univocity of being with regard to substance and accident.
In fact, the nominalist theologian Marsilius of Inghen, summarizing what he takes to be ‘‘the common opinion of many theologians’’ on the basis of the doctrine of the philosopher, John Buridan, explicitly draws the conclusion that on the basis of this opinion ‘‘being’’ should be regarded as a genus common to substance and all accidents, or at least to those accidents that are supernaturally separable in continued existence by divine power. Marsil-ius, however, does not want to side with the common opinion as described by Buridan. Working out what he takes to be a ‘‘more metaphysical’’ solution, he affirms the analogy of being between substance and accident; still, he does not equate it with the inseparability of accidents in the way Buridan does. He argues that substance and accident do not have the sort of essential agreement on the basis of which we could form a common univocal concept of the two; however, this does not mean that an accident remaining of the same nature could not be miraculously preserved in its being (Bakker 2001:257-264).
So, the question really is whether Buridan is correct in claiming that the Aristotelian doctrine of the analogy of being inevitably leads to the claim of the inseparability of accidents in continued existence, and thus whether upholding the theological doctrine of the Eucharist entails the commitment to the denial of the doctrine of the analogy of being with regard to substance and accident. The position of Duns Scotus certainly may give this impression. However, Aquinas, who definitely upheld the Aristotelian view concerning the analogy of being, found it to be compatible with the Christian doctrine of the Eucharist.
On Aquinas’ view, the division of ‘‘being’’ into substance and accident is not the division of a genus by means of essential, specific differences, but a division of the extension of an analogical term into its analogata, in which the nature of the thing, determining the kind of being the thing has, functions as a diminishing determination added to a distinct determinable, the act of being of the thing (Klima 2002). Thus, the kind of being the thing demands by its nature is determined by the thing’s nature. However, if a superior power overrides the natural tendency of this nature to have a certain kind of being, this does not take away the natural tendency of the thing itself, and hence does not destroy the thing’s nature, just as a heavy body would not lose its natural tendency to be down, even if an external power lifts it up. The crucial point in Aquinas’ solution, therefore, is the Avicennean interpretation of Aristotle’s doctrine of the analogy of being, as based on the real distinction between the essence and existence of created beings. For this is what grounds his claim that even if the actual mode of being of an accident changes in the Eucharist (from ‘‘inherent’’ to ‘‘subsistent’’), still, this may leave the distinct nature of the thing unaffected, which only contains the natural tendency to be in a subject.
But then it should not come as a surprise that the philosopher Siger of Brabant, who rejects the Avicennean interpretation of Aristotle, and sides with Averroes in rejecting the real distinction between essence and existence in creatures, could not endorse this sort of solution (Siger of Brabant 1972a:41). His position is actually the closest to the position of Aristotle as described by Buridan. In his commentary on the Metaphysics, after vehemently Denying the thesis of the real distinction between essence and existence in the creatures as stemming from an error of Avicenna’s (Siger of Brabant 1983:34), Siger insists (in his reply to one of Aquinas’ arguments for the real distinction) that the act of being (esse) need not multiply in beings because of something added to it, but rather it is multiplied on account of its ratio essendi (its mode of being), the diversity of which in different kinds of beings is entailed by Aristotle’s claim that ens cannot be a genus (Siger of Brabant 1983:36-37). However, in the question directly addressing the issue whether existence is a genus, Siger explicitly concludes that the reason why ens cannot be a genus is that the ratio essendi of accidents, being a non-absolute ratio, cannot be the same as the ratio essendi of substances, which is an absolute ratio (Siger of Brabant 1983:101). In a different context - most notably in the context of the question whether the intellect can be both subsistent and inherent - he also insists that these rationes essendi are so incompatible, that they cannot belong to the same thing (Siger of Brabant 1972:79-80). Indeed, in the context where he directly addresses the question of what sort of quiddity accidents have, he explicitly asserts
The implication of all this, along with Siger’s identification of essence with existence, is clearly that the same thing, while remaining the same thing, cannot have one ratio essendi after the other, and thus, an accident, having the ratio essendi of an inherent being, cannot, while remaining what it was, an accident, have later on the ratio essendi of a subsistent being, on pain of contradiction. But this leaves him with a sheer ‘‘fideistic’’ position concerning the possibility of the separate existence of accidents in the Eucharist, without resolving the contradiction with his philosophical conclusions, provoking both Aquinas’ philosophical criticisms, while defending his own ‘‘Avicennean Aristotle,’’ and the wrath of Augus-tinian theologians, rejecting Siger’s ‘‘Averroistic Aristotle.’’ It was this kind of ‘‘Averroistic Aristotelianism,’’ famously condemned in 1277, which was sternly rejected by theologians such as Henry of Ghent and later Duns Scotus. However, since they also rejected the Avicennean-Thomistic thesis of the real distinction of being and essence, they more radically reinterpreted the Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident, ending up with positions closer to what Marsilius (taking his cue from Buridan) described as ‘‘the common opinion’’ of theologians.
In general, the most fundamental issue concerning the interpretation of the Aristotelian notion of inherence and its compatibility with the doctrine of the Eucharist seems to be whether the Aristotelian notion can consistently be interpreted in such a way that according to this interpretation transubstantiation does not have to destroy the nature of accidents. Aquinas’ ‘‘Avicennean solution’’ is based on the thesis of real distinction between essence and existence, on the basis of which, even if the mode of being of the thing changes, this can leave the distinct nature of the thing unaffected.
Those, however, who rejected this Avicennean interpretation of Aristotle, be they philosophers, like Siger or Buridan, or theologians, like Henry of Ghent or Duns Scotus, ended up either with an irresoluble conflict between their Aristotelianism and their faith, as Siger did, or with a more radical departure from Aristotle in their interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of the analogy of being, as Henry, Scotus, and Buridan did. Either way, abandoning the Thomistic interpretation of the Aristotelian distinction seems to drive a wedge between faith and reason, culminating in the attribution of radically different notions of accidental being to philosophers and to theologians by Buridan. Perhaps, this is what motivated Marsilius of Inghen’s ‘‘more metaphysical’’ solution, echoing the gist of Aquinas’.
The gist of Marsilius’ solution is the permanence of the natural tendency of the accident to be in a subject, even if its actual existence changes from inherent to subsistent, just as it was in Aquinas (Bakker 2001:262). However, for Marsilius, the nominalist theologian, this solution was no longer based on the Avicennean interpretation of Aristotle provided by Aquinas, but rather on the strict separation of what is naturally and what is only supernaturally possible, indeed, on a radical separation of theological and secular philosophical and scientific discourse initiated in many ways by the nominalism of William of Ockham (see Klima 2009).
Ockham’s nominalism, on the other hand, was partly motivated by what he perceived as entirely futile metaphysical problems concerning the categories, based on a mistaken semantic conception of his contemporaries (Klima 1999a). His new semantic conception motivated by this perception, in turn, led to a radical transformation of scholastic discourse and, along with other conceptual changes in late-medieval philosophy, to the emergence of the possibility of completely and systematically eliminating accidents really distinct from substances, and thus eventually to the collapse of the scholastic substance-accident metaphysics in early modern philosophy.
World History
